


Dear to Me

by theinimitablefolding



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: F/M, Fluff, NSFW, Zutara Month 2020, can't believe i'm rooting for the straights, i don't like writing sex, it's p graphic y'all, love these kids, no slow burn baby, so it's all pretty loose
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:14:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25536436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theinimitablefolding/pseuds/theinimitablefolding
Summary: Katara and Zuko reunite after ten years, navigating the complexities of forming a relationship that's been so long in the making.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 57





	1. Reunion

**Author's Note:**

> This is for Zutara Week, and obviously each chapter will be based on the prompts. I hope you like it, this is literally the only straight couple my gay ass will ever care about and that's a fact

Firelord Zuko was absolutely certain that this entire affair was about to be a complete and unmitigated catastrophe. His advisers, from the lowliest minister of trade and commerce, to his most decorated general had all bent their ears to his plans, and each of them had returned to him a look of absolute bewilderment, followed by their most diplomatic, and gently deferential, advice to cease at all costs. And he knew that they were all absolutely correct, even as he stood on the balcony of his magnificent room, his mightiest hawk on his shoulder, he knew that this was a fantastic and foolish move on his part. 

Nevertheless, he sent that hawk out at once, before he could think better of it. He watched the strong and thorough creature disappear into the south-western sky, and felt already a drawing terror in his gut, as though at any second the bird would return with a terrible reply. He would have to wait weeks, he knew, for a reply. Maybe even longer. Knowing people had told him that the weather in the region was fair, and that his chosen messenger would have no trouble at all, but he could not help but imagine any number of terrible scenarios wherein his message was lost forever. Pirates, other birds of prey, vicious sea life jumping out of the water and snatching the bird as it flew. As the weeks went by, he imagined all of this and more.

As the days, and then the weeks, dragged on, Zuko’s mind turned to deeper and deeper levels of catastrophizing. He imagined the hawk returning bearing messages of absolute damnation and disavowal. Never again will you blacken by doorstep! He imagined, as though she would ever say that. Worse still, and far more likely, was a gentle denial. I hope we are still friends. Imagining reading that made him almost physically ill. He felt like he had on that precipice, watching her watch the waves, as though she would turn around and tell him to go – that he had failed, and that she could never forgive him. She. She. She. He could not even think her name.

At length, he received no message back. This was, he acknowledged privately, to himself, the worst of all possible scenarios – that he should simply receive no word at all, nothing whatsoever. He was lord of one of the four Nations, friend to the Avatar himself, the decider of a terrible and once-endless war, a bringer of peace, justice, and prosperity to his once ignorant and decaying nation – and yet he felt for those weeks like a child in school, eagerly awaiting his crush’s response. He was that, in some way, he reflected bitterly at one point. 

Seven weeks after he released his hawk, fully four times the length of the creature’s journey both ways, Zuko meditated in his room, a row of candles set before him on the floor, his gentle breathing causing the flames to lilt up and down, he received a gentle knock at the door, a knock he knew well – a servant who he greatly liked, and who was often used by his other servants to broach news which might upset the Firelord, whose temper was only ever under control. 

“My lord,” the boy said. Zuko did not open an eye. There were two possibilities – he knew. First, the hawk had returned without a message. A terrible fact, but one he could live with. That would sting the most, more even than a rejection, but nevertheless, he would manage it. The second option was that the hawk had been found, and it had met with some unfortunate end. This was less likely, the creature was powerful and swift, but it held tremendous hope and fear. If this were the case, he would have to relive these seven weeks. 

“Yes?” Zuko responded.

“Lady Katara, of the Southern Water Tribe is here.” At this, the candles leapt, their flames combining at once, forming a single massive orange-red flare, at once melting the candles to nubs, and snuffing themselves out. He had anticipated many possible eventualities, but he had not anticipated this.

“What?” He said, turning. The servant looked at him and nodded.

“She has only just docked, my lord, she will be here presently.” Zuko plotted the distance between his palace and the city docks – he had scarcely any time at all. He at once stood and the servant, who knew well how to dress his lord, broke into step after him, going towards his chambers. On the way plans were made, things to be done, attendants to be alerted and food to be set out. Zuko asked questions too, made the servant tell him every scrap of information that he knew. Who was with her? No one, she arrived on board a trading vessel. Where was the hawk? It was amongst that which she had with her, looking quite pleased by all accounts. 

This was, doubtless, the catastrophe for which he had been preparing himself. Katara had come to rebuke him, or else to demand he take it back. He had scarcely breathed her name in the past seven weeks, hardly even thought it, and yet now it infested his mind and body like an illness. She made his thinking slow, his heart pound, his entire body seemed like an open wound. If she had merely sent her rejection ahead of her, it would have been bearable, but this was more terrible than he could imagine. 

As they arrived at his chambers, they found another servant standing before the door, gingerly stroking the hawk’s head. The very hawk who had been carrying the message those seven week before. Zuko froze. 

“My lord!” The servant with the hawk said.

“She has…she’s arrived before me?” He asked. The servant nodded.

“She asked to be shown to your room, my lord.” The servant responded. Zuko was currently wearing only a set of training pants and a sash, not even any shoes. The left side of his body, covered in burns, was totally exposed. He looked down at himself dumbly. Was this some errant form of humiliation? To rebuff him when he was at his least lordly? He gritted his teeth. 

“So be it. Leave us. I will…I will be occupied until the morning.” He said to both servants, who bowed and hastily made their way down the hall and away from him. His estimation of time was more to give himself the allowance of isolation which he was sure he would need. 

Inside, the room was warm, and the candles had been dimmed, sparse baggage was piled in one corner of the room, and the window had been opened to the dusk, allowing the light to cast tantalizing shadows all about him. At the center of the room, illuminated in orange, looking taller and darker than when last they had seen one another, was Katara. Her hair was down, and she was turned away from him, her eyes studying something which he could not see. She wore the customary colors of the Fire Nation, red and orange, having forgone her blues and whites perhaps for some reason he could not ascertain. As he pushed the door fully open, she did not turn.

Insufferable! Zuko thought. He had hoped she would turn and launch into him, as she had before. Berating him and demanding an explanation. Or something, anything! But she just stood there, back to him, bare shoulders illuminated by the sun. He shut the door quietly behind him, almost not wishing to disturb her. Nevertheless, as the door was replaced, she turned.

Katara’s blue eyes seemed almost to be on fire, to be dancing with the sunlight in them, to be pools of light into which the sun had fallen and now blazed brilliantly. It was as though he were looking into a cool pond from which the sun had strayed and now returned. Ignorantly, he took a step forward. He had never before felt more like a lost child, despite himself, he smiled. Seeing her was, even in the worst of times, a joy.

“Katara.” He said. Confidently, now proffering his note to her, she strode forward. When she stopped they stood toe to toe.

“What is this?” Katara said. He could not read her, he had always been rather terrible at reading her, in fact. She handed him the note and crossed her arms over her chest. He had not choice but to look down at his middling calligraphy, and reread what he had said, which despite the month he spend drafting it, seemed almost too terrible to comprehend.

Katara, it read, I have been for nearly ten years now the unmarried Fire Lord. Upon discovering, from Aang, what happened, I believe you feel the same as I do. Will you allow me to come and see you, and perhaps change our circumstances? Yours, Fire Lord Zuko. It was impossibly difficult for him to read – what had he been thinking? It was tactful, certainly, but reading it now it seemed almost petulant. He may as well have written do you like me? With one box reading yes and one no, awaiting a checkmark.

“A letter to you.” He said. She nodded.

“Saying what?” Katara asked. He hadn’t seen her like this ever, she was blushing, she was made, and she was…something else he could not say. He looked at her blankly, desperately searching for any word. Her nostrils flared and she leapt, then, into his arms. Quite literally. He felt the bare skin of her thighs around his waist, and her hands on his shoulders, and he wrapped his arms under her to support her, in a completely unpracticed but perfectly agile move. She had positioned her head above his, and their mouths were nearly touching. When she spoke again, he could taste her breath. “Say it.” She whispered.

There was so very much to say. Endless things to say.

“I love you.” It snuck out of mouth almost on its own, and no sooner had he said it then she caught the words in her mouth and brought them together, her hungry form finding his, their lips meeting in something like desperation. He kept one arm around her to support her, and the other hand went to her cheek. She was hot, and she smelled like the sea, and he could not think of anything but the way she tasted. Her hands found his hair and she desperately tried to bring his head closer to her. She tightened her legs around him, and he tightened his grip on her. She wanted to be closer to him. To be one. Ten years of desperate and silent love exploded out of them. She did not need to say it back, for she said it in that moment. She pulled back her lips far enough to speak.

“Take me to bed.” She said. 

Zuko effortlessly crossed the room with her in his arms, still kissing her. Her bare feet found his waistband as he held her against one of the posters of his bed, and with one swift movement he was naked. He similarly removed her clothes, a job made much easier by the fact that she was not wearing anything beneath her travelling clothes. Now she only wore her mother’s necklace, and he wore nothing at all. He dropped her onto bed, and they looked at one another. Still intertwined, but taking a moment to breathlessly stare at one another now. 

He was beautiful, she thought. The scars made the left side of his body, from eye to shoulder a mirror of shiny skin, taught and strained against his muscle. His physique was magnificent, and she looked hungrily down from his chest to his legs and then back up. His manhood was hard, gently touching her thigh, his body hair groomed, his entire body seemingly poised against her, inviting her pleasure. She looked at him hungrily.

He thought that she was singularly the most beautiful thing that he had ever seen. Muscular and dark and fittingly soft, from her lips, parted and hungry for him, to her delicate and lovely feet, he could not help but marvel. Her naked chest, her hips, her legs, her waiting womanhood, shining and gorgeous in the sunset. He had been with people before – men and women, as was typical of any lord, but he felt in that moment like an unbedded child. 

Slowing his breathing, he leaned down into her, kissing her waiting lips gently, shifting his weight so that they were cradling one another, wrapped around one another. Her fingertips gently wrapped around the length of his manhood and she guided him into her. She gasped as he entered, and he stopped breathing all together.

“Gently.” She whispered, bringing his lips to hers. He pushed forward, until he was entirely inside of her, marveling at every second how wonderful she felt, how she held him, her feet wrapped around his back, her tongue in his mouth. Their bodies seemed to be made for one another, and as he increased in speed, slowly, she moaned exactly as he did, digging her nails into his back. He went faster, and faster, and she moaned more loudly. He buried his face in the crook of her neck as she arched her back, her mouth open, both of them unable to keep up the effort of kissing as they ascended higher and higher towards bliss. He felt his body on the verge, and he went to remove himself, but she held him there.

“Inside.” She moaned, and this was enough, this one word, and its implications, to send this both careening over the edge. She half-screamed, and he groaned loudly as they climaxed together, in perfect oneness. In that moment they seemed to become one person, as though they had never truly been a separate consciousness. 

They stayed like that for a moment, maybe longer, it was hard to tell. It was hard to remove the two of their souls from one another, as though they were irrevocably intwined. The act – the lovemaking itself – had been started and ended quickly, and yet they each would have sworn that it had been longer – hours rather than minutes. They had, in those moments, become one entity, briefly. Slowly, Zuko pulled himself out of Katara, and collapsed beside her. immediately and reflexively, she fell onto his chest, and he enfolded her in his arms, kissing her hair, inhaling deeply the smell he found there. She kissed his chest. There were a hundred small tokens of affection in the afterglow, until he spoke at last.

“Normally, I…well, normally it’s longer.” Zuko said, and when Katara looked at him, his cheeks were pink, and then she laughed, and then he laughed, and all of the worry in him – which had somehow persisted slightly even through that – was alleviated. 

“You’d better show me next time.” Katara said, running her hand over his right shoulder, down his bicep, and into his hand. Their fingers intertwined, and she kissed his knuckles. “Normally I’m not that easy but, well, seven weeks is a lot of buildup.” 

“So is ten years.” Zuko responded, and she couldn’t help but laugh. He listened to it, listened to that laugh filling up his whole body, and he sighed contentedly. Now that she was in his arms, the sun was set, and the moon had risen. Her orange-hued skin of the sunset had become bluer, and her eyes seemed impossibly dark as he looked down into them.

“We should have done this then.” Katara said, touching his face. She kissed him again, softly this time, gently nibbling his lower lip, tracing his jawline with tiny kisses. “What a waste.”

“We’ll make up for the time.” He said. Then he looked down at her necklace, watching the silken ribbon around her throat bobbing, and she noticed him looking at her.

“I certainly hope you have bigger plans than just a letter, you know. I expect something big after such a long wait.” She said, half-teasing. In fact, Zuko had carved the engagement necklace himself, and it now sat in a vault below them, entirely safe and entirely unknown to anyone. He had spent a year learning how to do it, and spent even longer finding the proper materials. It had started out merely as a hobby, but had inevitably turned, as so much of his life did, towards her. He did not tell her this – not yet. There would be time for that. 

“Oh, are you saying that was not a yes?” Zuko said, and she kisses his collarbone in response, before giving him a gentle, but slightly uncomfortable bite which seemed to communicate everything he needed to know. She kissed his collarbone again, and again, and then they both looked down at his already stiffening manhood.

“My,” She said. “Ask me after this.” 

In response, he effortlessly moved her on top of him, straddling his lap, his now completely hard manhood behind her, and they were kissing again. If the first time had been desperate, fast, unceremonious, then this time was a longer, and far more intimate affair. They kissed every inch of one another. They tangled sheets. They spent half the night biting, touching, groping, and licking each other. By the time they had exhausted one another, Zuko’s jaw was tight and his wrists were cramped. Katara had taken him in her mouth twice, and moaned in delight at the results. They moved from the bed to the bath and back to the bed. He bent her over furniture and saw the beautiful results of angling himself just right within her. They ended the night with bite marks and scratches, having seemingly sought to make up for the entire decade in only a few hours, and when they collapsed it wasn’t for the feeling that they were done, it was from the impossibility of any continuing. 

As they lay on the futon on the floor, having abandoned the bed earlier at the height of their lovemaking when he had broken one of its legs, they were less two differentiated beings than one mass of sex. The long act seemed to have drained them both, and they seemed to be existing now as a symbiotic organism, living only off of one another. Able to remain conscious only while the other person did so. She inhaled, smelling him, and smelling the room, smelling the lingering scent of sex. It would have been unpleasant to any other person, but to them it was something like divinity. With lidded eyes, she kissed his ear, and he kissed her forehead.

“Quite the reunion.” He whispered.

“What were you expecting?” She asked.

“Honestly?” He asked. “I was kind of expecting you to…actually, to react the same way you did when I joined up with you all.” She chuckled sleepily before he continued on. “I was thinking about that, when I was composing that letter – where did it get to, by the way? Ah, over there. Anyway, I was thinking about that. I was thinking how much easier this all would have been, if I had stayed with you in Ba Sing Se.” 

“Maybe.” Katara said. She was nearing sleep then, but she remained awake just long enough to respond to him. “But, we’re here now, and I love you now, and you love me, now.” She settled in against him, and was fast asleep almost before she finished speaking. He kissed her shoulder, and she cooed in her sleep, and the lovers fell asleep.


	2. Counterpart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katara and Zuko find balance in their new life together.

Katara was everything that Zuko was not, and even those flaws of his which he had sharpened and honed into admirable skills, she excelled in naturally. Katara was a natural when it came to the politicking of the Fire Nation, easily winning over even his most fearsome political opponent, and turning him, if not into an ally, then a begrudging team member. Zuko, on the other hand, found politics to be his absolute weakness. His popularity with the people could not be understated, he had come to them at the height of war exhaustion, and delivered them into a new era of peace, but to his fellow statesman, it had seemed something more like a coup. This had left him on the constant backfoot, and while he had managed with difficulty, Katara made it look almost effortless.

This natural skill and craftsmanship in politics had led almost immediately her into Zuko’s throne room for each council meeting, and to be by his side for every public address. In only three months of engagement, the other lords and the people had taken to this beautiful woman from the unknown snows almost as much as Zuko. He was loved, but she was worshipped. This dynamic served Zuko far better than the other way around. It allowed him relative freedom of movement, freedom to be more cut throat, when such a thing became necessary, and as his fiancée found a reputation for being kind, empathetic, and the woman of the people, Zuko began to hone his own image into that of the brutal and efficient leader. 

Firelord Zuko was ruthless in his efficiency, and unyielding in his resolve, and any bridges which he burnt Katara would invariably come to mend. Even the act of their betrothal demonstrated this: she was of no family, and not even of the Fire Nation, and only created her import during the war, and through her aiding of the Avatar – which made her already popular with the people, but still and forever an outsider. Zuko, however, would not bend. His bride would be this Water Tribe peasant, or he would never marry, and she would remain all the same, so surely better to have it given some modicum of formality and officiality. Katara’s first act as his betrothed was to win each advisor and councilmember in turn. 

The women of the council were easy converts. Katara was lovely and kind, and to their minds her thoughtfulness and intelligence at the side of the Fire Lord might calm his temper – which was surely still his greatest pitfall. She charmed them each in turn, and those she could not charm she discovered through conversation what they wanted, and how to deliver it to them through Zuko. The men were, in many ways, easier than the women, only more numerous. She politely took their arm in the halls after council meetings and with only that more than half of them were hers. The other half were slower going. 

They wanted so many things, each of them, and it was a question of discovering that one thing which they would not surrender. One was a war hero, and a great general, who would not budge on his suggested military appointments. Katara found a way around this, she allowed him some of those appointments, but gave him also those things which he had not known he wanted: a monument here, a special ceremony there, these things which inspired love for his military, but would not feed the warlike fury which the Fire Nation had lately taken to. Next in line there were the endless members of the civilian sector. Economists, traders, academics, and so on. She found compromises for them all. 

In three months, Katara had gone from the foreigner who had so readily and without ceremony become a part of the court, to a beloved figure, whose absence was noted and lamented. Zuko watched this all with pleasure. She had fit so perfectly into this life, it seemed destined from the very beginning. And of course, he fit into hers as well. Their oncoming marriage meant that their two nations would be closely linked. At times, she took up the cause of both the Northern and Southern Water Tribes. Reparations and aid would be made to the South, and to the North, a long process of reconstituting friendship would begin. They would travel to each of these places soon. First the North, where the great Fire Lord Zuko would begin to right his own wrongs, and then the South for the far more challenging aspect: meeting Katara’s family as her fiancé, and not as a Fire Nation raider.

This balance between them, of course, was not to say that they were opposites, politically or otherwise. Fire Lord Zuko was progressive, and learned to value peace from his uncle, and to do his best to ensure that his citizens were happy, and able to lead their best lives under his rule. He reinstated same sex marriages, which his grandfather had outlawed. He defunded the local police forces which had grown out of control. He removed state propaganda from schools, and ensured a curriculum in the arts as well as technology and science. Katara learned all of this with great pleasure; to her, seeing the Fire Nation blossom in so short a time into something that she had never expected it to be was no less than a rejuvenation of her faith in the world, and to watch Zuko do it awoke for her a feeling of fierce loyalty, and even fiercer love.

Their love was something which surprised even then. They had love one another those ten years, surely, but that was the love felt by children. It was the love of two people on a journey together, the childish love which threatens to break under strain not because it is weak, but because it is brittle. What grew between them in those few months was the love of adults. The love of two people who had chosen each other and would continue to choose one another each and every day. Their differences only made it stronger, and as different as they were prone to being – she calm and soothing, him wild and impatient – this difference only brought them closer together. It was the difference, Katara noted, of her love for Zuko, and her love for Aang.

Aang! Aang was a conversation which the two of them had early on, and one which neither of them quite knew how to broach. There was no bitterness from Zuko, maybe a twinge of jealousy, but even that was limited. It was hard to be jealous of another, when the situation had worked out so well in his favor. They discussed it, however, one morning as they practiced their bending. Bending practice which had quickly become a ritual – each morning, they awoke and changed into their training clothes, and went to a secluded courtyard to practice. Even in this there was unison: after their initial exercises, they moved in a fine dance between one another, never a step out of place, their styles complimenting one another. It was after this dance when they were closest to one another, besides maybe after they made love.

“So,” Katara began that particular morning. “Aang.” 

“Aang.” Zuko agreed. They were sitting by the pool from which Katara drew her water, seated atop their feet, half meditating, half enjoying the sunrise. The two of them were close enough to feel the heat off of the other’s body, but not quite touching.

“I loved him. I still do.” Katara said, and Zuko practiced the breathing techniques that his uncle taught him so long ago now. “But, we were kids together, and I think that’s what it always was. Was always going to be.” She looked at Zuko.

“You turned down his proposal.” Zuko said.

“Twice.” Katara agreed. “And you and Mai split up too.” Zuko nodded sagely.

“Three years ago, it was a whole deal.” He said.

“Why?”

“It wasn’t right for us. She fed me, but we didn’t make one another better.” Zuko said.

“Oh, and do we make one another better?” Katara asked. Zuko looked at her with his one eyebrow raised which was funny, and Katara snickered. “Okay, we do.” A hitch then, in the conversation, a minor one, but one that demanded attention.

“I guess I never got over you, and when Aang told me what happened…” He gestured to everything around them. “I had to see if I could make things right. Uncle said that I would never be able to find true balance if I didn’t address my past, and I had addressed everything except for…us.” 

Katara gingerly touched her betrothal necklace, while keeping her eyes half closed and focused on the water. Zuko watched her, trying to note the emotions as they passed over her face. She still loved Aang, probably always would, just as he still loved Mai, and probably always would, and there was the smallest hint of sadness there. Perhaps not at what could have been, but at what never could have been.

“You know, the only time I ever felt like I could really hurt someone, when…we met the man who killed my mother? Part of the reason I couldn’t do it – maybe what pushed it over the edge – was because you were there.” Katara said. Zuko said nothing, but kept watching those sad eyes. “I was so angry, and I had felt up until that point like maybe you had been feeding it, but then, when I had the chance, I saw that you weren’t feeding it. You were making me see what he was. Just some pathetic old man who had been destroyed by himself. People talk about how I’m the calm one, but they never saw me then. You balance that part of me in a way that no one else ever could have.” 

Languidly, she shifted, as did Zuko, and they were embracing. It was not the typical embrace of lovers, that calm and easy touch which was broken without being broken, it was the wild, crushing hug that they so often shared. It was the hug of trying to force their physical selves into the oneness that they felt spiritually. Their fingers wrapped in the others hair, their bodies touching in every inch. Zuko’s scarred flesh against her own, nearly free of blemish. In that moment, their reflections swam in the pool before them, in an image which Katara knew to be familiar somehow. Two beings, as one, forever in balance.


	3. Fuse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuko and Katara are married.

That first wedding ceremony, such as it was, was small and private, owing in part to Zuko’s dislike of public ceremony focused on him, and in part to the fact that it took place at the South Pole. This had been something the had agreed to early on: that there would be two ceremonies, one for them at the South Pole, and another for the public in the Fire Nation. The former would be small, attended by their friends and family, and the latter would be extravagant and arranged entirely by people whose job it was to ensure that such ceremonies were remembered for 100 years. To their minds, this had been acceptable, although they had each been looking forward exclusively to the wedding at the South Pole. 

The wedding itself took place in an ice structure created by Katara, which was by far the most beautiful structure made of ice that anyone had ever seen, or could ever remember seeing. It was made of one single, contiguous piece of ice which arose from the water fully formed, and which seemed, as Zuko watched it, for he was the only person there, to build itself. He knew from the look on Katara’s face, and the sweat on her brow that she was making each and every minute aspect of the structure, but as he watched it it was more like the thing was already there, in the water, and she was simply giving it form. 

That form itself was not excessively large, being perfectly sized to fit the ten or so people, themselves included, who would be attending, but it was not marvelous for its size. It was marvelous for the fact that it seemed at ends to be made entirely out of fire which had somehow frozen in its heat, and now appeared luminescent somehow. Katara explained that this was a trick in the structure of the ice, causing it to catch and refract light at all angles and in all hues which their eyes could perceive. One might assume that this effect was overwhelming, and to some degree it was, but it was also one of the most beautiful sights that Zuko – or anyone else in attendance – had ever seen.

The most beautiful sight he had ever seen, though, was Katara on that afternoon when they were married. The structure was warm, pleasantly warm, fueled by fires and animal skins and so forth, and so Katara was wearing a traditional Water Tribe marriage gown, with the only indication that she had connection to the Fire Nation a hair piece which he had given her the year before when they were betrothed. It was not the gown or her hair or her lovely figure or anything that staggered Zuko, rather it was the shine in her eyes. This was an ever-present facet of his love for her: the way that she looked at him. Katara looked at Zuko in a way that he had never seen her look at anyone – she looked at him like she was seeing not only that moment, but every future moment. She looked at him like she was looking at their whole lives together. It was impossible to say how he knew this, but he did, and he knew he looked at her the same way.

The ceremony was done, the vows were said, and they were married, officially. The only people in attendance beside the two of them were Iroh, Ursa, Hakoda, Bato, Gran Gran, Aang, Toph, Sokka, and Suki. It was a very limited attendance, but there wasn’t one person there who each of them didn’t love, and in accordance when the two kissed, the applause seemed somehow so much larger than the attendance would allow. Indeed, it was more like rapture than the limited number of people present should have been capable of, and when the newlyweds stepped out of the marvelous structure, it seemed like the entirety of the Southern Water Tribe as outside, and the party was joyous. Congratulations were made all around, perhaps the most ardent being Aang’s. 

The two of them had not spoken since Aang’s letter that he and Katara had split up. It wasn’t out of malice or jealousy – evidenced well enough by his attending the wedding. Rather, it was out of an almost cloying embarrassment on Zuko’s part. Katara was a grown woman, and she could make her own decisions, and she had, but nevertheless, it felt like something of a betrayal of his friend. Not so much so that he would take anything back, but just a bit. They hadn’t been directly avoiding one another, of course, the bridge between the humans and spirits and the leader of the Fire Nation hardly had to make up reasons not to run into one another – they were both busy, and Aang for the past two years had been deep in talks with Earth Kingdom leadership about building a city. Of course, this official business would eventually lead to Zuko, but for the moment the two had been content to be separate. This is why it had been so shocking when Aang had locked eyes with Zuko from across the dance floor. Zuko made his way over, confident, thrilled even to speak to his old friend. And Aang embraced him. He had grown tall, and strong, and they hugged the way that only old friends can hug.

“I’m happy for you.” Aang said. It was said with genuine friendliness, and maybe a little sadness. The two men held one another at arm’s length, briefly, before breaking apart. Zuko looked at his erstwhile enemy, now old friend.

“Thank you, Aang.” He tried to fill the statement wit has much meaning as he possibly could, to load it down with as much emotion as he could possibly manage. The two of them turned to look at Katara. She was dancing with Toph, who looked to be having a terrible time, which was making Katara smile.

“You know,” Zuko said. “I used to roll my eyes at people who said that their partner completed them, and I still might, but being with her…it’s not like she’s my partner, it’s like we’re one person. I can look at her and now exactly what she’s thinking, and she can do the same to me, and even when there’s distance between us – something about the other we don’t understand, it makes me feel even closer to her. Like I’m discovering something new about myself.”

He had said something similar to that in his vows to Katara, and looking at her now he felt it all the more. She had now passed Toph to Sokka, and was dancing with Suki, her sister in law, and – Zuko supposed – his sister in law…in law? Well, she was something like family now, something more like family anyway. He looked at Aang, who was watching Katara.

“After we ended things, I wrote to her about some of my plans, and I asked her what she was going to do, and she said that she was planning on spending some time in the Fire Nation, and then I sent you that message. I thought ‘let’s get on with it!’” Aang said it in a half whisper, with a sad smile on his face. Zuko felt, in that moment, connected to him. He understood exactly how he felt, because he had felt it when Katara had chosen him after the comet. He put his hand on Aang’s shoulder, and the two of them said nothing for a long moment. It was Aang who broke the silence.

“Wanna dance?” He asked. Zuko stammered.

“Oh! I, I don’t know, I mean, I only know the one with Katara, and…” But Aang had already grabbed his hand and was dragging him onto the dance floor. He felt, then, not only at one with Katara, but somehow at one with every single smiling face amongst them, as though the entire South Pole and everyone on it was one people – his people.


	4. Celestial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Katara and Zuko make a stop before returning home.

Katara was not a Firebender, and she had never found the sun to inspire anything in her other than an irritating sweat, but lying on that rock, half undressed, watching her husband bend was something of a marvel to her. It wasn’t that she felt invigorated, or even particularly aroused by the sight; he was an expressive bender and she had seen him use that ability daily if not more frequently, but now it somehow felt different than that. She wasn’t watching him merely use that ability of which he was a master, but instead she was watching him react to the sun. As she sat on that rock in that desert halfway between the South Pole and the Fire Nation, she was watching him in concert with the very stars themselves. 

“The sun,” He had said, when he proposed going to the Earth Kingdom for an impromptu trip before returning to the Fire Nation, “is so clear there, so loud. It’s like I can feel it.” And watching him now, she felt certain that she could feel it too. It was like watching in the distance as the sun baked the sand and heat arose from the ground, it was watching the air itself dance and shudder under the intensity of the heat. That is what Zuko seemed to feel in that moment, and she instantly became aware of why Firebenders were drawn to volcanoes in the same way that she was drawn to the ocean: it felt closer to home. 

The only time she had seen him bend that she had been truly afraid was when they had fought at Ba Sing Se after he had turned on them, watching his fists shoot fire was horrible, like each bolt of flame was hitting her squarely. It was fear, but not of the fire as such. It was fear that he would be hunting them forever, that he was beyond hope, and that they could do nothing to assuage the self-hate and confusion within him. Azula was twisting him up, and she knew in that moment that neither she nor Sokka nor Aang had any chance of helping him. The fear in that moment, and the fear when he joined them at last, was not fear of his prowess, but fear of what she herself could feel.

When Zuko betrayed her in Ba Sing Se she felt hate. A hate so acute and so sharp that it felt like at any moment it would cut its way out of her. It was a childish hate, petulant, but nevertheless it was there, and she had been a powerful child. If she could Bloodbend in that moment, she might have turned it on him. She might have killed him. She was certain that he might have done the same to her in that moment, and even some before then too. 

“My nephew is a complicated man, and what brought him into your group, into helping the Avatar, was the culmination of a spiritual journey of the highest magnitude – a journey which could have just as easily turned him against you all forever.” Those were Iroh’s words to her after the war, when they had spoken to each other at the Jasmine Dragon. She thought about that rarely, but now as she watched her husband bend she could think of nothing else. The chances that he might have remained forever her enemy was strange to think about. 

Everything could have been different, she supposed. She could have missed Aang’s iceberg when she yelled at Sokka, they could have refused to join him, the Southern Raiders could have left her mother alive, even further back, Avatar Roku could have killed Fire Lord Sozin and prevented all of the killing in the first place. Everything that happened, she knew, was a series of incredibly fortunate accidents. It was all a celestial miracle. Aang would have called it fate, and she might too, but in that moment, under the setting sun, watching her husband bend in a truly magnificent display, she felt so impossibly small under the sun and stars. So small, and yet still a cog in the machinery of the universe. She made a decision then, which she and Zuko had been circling without acknowledging for the whole time they had been together. 

It was not that they didn’t want children, or that they were taking any precautions against them either, but they hadn’t directly acknowledged the possibility either. They both knew that that would come, but the fact that it hadn’t yet was strange, especially with the way that they went at it. So now she acknowledged it: she wanted children, and she knew that he did. Somehow that felt like a broken seal – like now she would be pregnant the very next time they made love. Which, she knew, would be the moment that they returned to camp. She was certain of it, but she could not say why. Run it up, she supposed, to having lucky stars.

As the sun set, Zuko – sweating and smiling and shirtless and so incredibly beautiful – trotted up to her like a proud boy who had shown his father a new thing he had learned. Well, maybe not his father. He hopped easily onto the rock and kissed her sweetly, but quickly. It was a gentle peck, their lips meeting and separating at once. It was the happy kiss of a man who wanted to tell her something, but she held his face and looked him in the eyes. There was no time for that just then.

“Zuko…” She said, and she said it in such a way that stopped him at once. He became suddenly attentive – not serious, but attentive. “Let’s go back to camp.” He nodded, still looking at her face.

The walk back to camp was short, it was only over the ridge in an oasis, and as they walked she kissed his hand, and they did not speak. The oasis was green and verdant and at its center was placed a small pool, and next to the pool was an almost perfect cushion of soft grass. She held his hand as they moved to the edge of the small pool, and when they arrived she turned and, looking into his eyes, one milky where his father had destroyed the eye, and the other sharp and golden. She slipped her clothes off easily, and watched with satisfaction as he wordlessly did the same. She gently embraced him, crossing her arms behind his head, pressing her body against his, where she felt with pride that he was already stiffening. As they looked into one another’s eyes, they each knew what this meant, and how this time would be different, she knew that.

Zuko was a generous lover at any given time, but this time he was particularly attentive to her. He spent so long with his head between her legs that it almost became unbearable, it was as though he were deliberately dragging it out so that when he finished it wasn’t just his skill that made her quiver but the anticipation she felt. When he finally entered her, she was coiled around him in their mutual favorite position, her legs and around him, her head against his neck. With each thrust she could feel his back muscles moving, and each time she moaned she felt the tears coming. When they climaxed it was together, and her cries of satisfaction were almost anguished pleasure. It was the greatest orgasm which she had ever experienced, and they lay together, unspeaking, for a time after that. They watched the stars on their backs, exhausted, and she slowly guided his hand to just below her belly button.

“A daughter.” She said at length, and he knew that she was right.


	5. Hesitancy

Zuko had become Fire Lord through a fairly violent power grab which involved dueling his sister, nearly killing his father, destroying a fleet of airships which might have won the war for the Fire Nation – at least in the eyes of its citizens – and finally conceding defeat and surrender in a war which was all but over. Needless to say, this had made him a divisive figure. Those civilians who were tired of the war praised him as a bringer of peace, but some, including the military, felt he was weak willed, even supplicant to the Avatar, and marrying a Water Tribe peasant had done little to help his public image with these dissenters. Nor had his full-scale surrender of Fire Nation colonies in the Earth Kingdom, or his reduction in military size and spending. Katara had joked that he was making himself an excellent target for assassination, and she was right – he knew. 

All of this came to him with a start when he awoke that morning – or was it night? He knew only that it was past midnight, but the sun was not yet up. Katara had awoken as well, both of them groggy, and both of them turning their heads about, scanning the room for strangeness. They did not speak at first, but they hardly needed to. They had both been awoken by the distinct woosh of flames, and the unmistakable sound of a body falling in the hallway. Zuko looked at his wife. She was only two months pregnant, but it had already indefinitely altered her behavior, just slightly. She was more cautious, but more ferocious in her dealings in council meetings, and he knew that she would be the same in battle. He himself had become infinitely more protective, and far more hesitant to charge into danger than he had once been. 

“That was outside.” He said simply. She stood up, grabbing her old water skin and putting it around her waist. He almost wanted to tell her to stay here, but he knew how pigheaded that would be, how foolish. Not only from the point of view of her safety – after all, two was better than one, but for his own safety as well. Katara and he, in battle, were perfectly balanced, and if there was trouble, he was far better off with her at his side.

“You lead.” Katara said, and they lined up by the door. Zuko could feel that familiar heat in his stomach as he breathed slowly, waiting, counting one, two, and three, before he threw open the doors. The hallway beyond was empty. This was a very bad sign. Typically he had two guards posted, one by the door and the other at the end of the hall, reasoning that the best time to assassinate someone would be when they were asleep and therefore couldn’t shoot fire at you. Both guards were gone now. 

As the two of them moved silently through the halls, their muscles tense, Zuko kept an eye on the ceiling, on windows, and on doors. They were Firebenders, probably, but they could also be non-benders, and might therefore move as he did when he wanted to go unnoticed. Even benders, he reasoned, might move like this, although it was less likely. He also tried to anticipate numbers; how many assassins would be sent against two master benders who had proven themselves matches for the very best in the world before they turned 18? Ten? Fifteen? He got his answer when they rounded a corner. There were no fewer than twenty black clad figures, all wearing no insignia at all, and occupied chiefly with a maintenance room.

The action was over in a flash – quite literally for Zuko. He and Katara were an easy match for the assassins, many of whom were Firebenders. They each ensured that their hits were non-lethal, but Zuko noticed that he and his wife both were hitting harder than they might otherwise have done. Even three months ago, it may have been a kinder dispatching. They were to be parents now, and they were fighting for that, he supposed. 

When the assassins had been defeated, Katara froze them all against a wall, and Zuko examined the room within, hearing with satisfaction the sounds of alarms being raised across the palace and guards being mobilized, drawn by the sounds of fighting. They had three canisters of some foul-smelling chemical or another, although what it was, he could not say. They had also pried open the air ducts and were seemingly in the process of vaporizing the chemical into the system. the system which, needless to say, would disperse into his and Katara’s quarters. So that is how you kill two masters, by not facing them. Angrily, he returned to the hall. Many of the assassins were awake now, but silent. He began removing face coverings. He recognized some of them. Soldiers. At least half of them were palace guards. He and Katara exchanged meaningful glances, and Zuko went to the highest ranking one amongst them.

“Sergeant Oh.” He said, with venom dripping from his voice. The sergeant said nothing, only looked at him with hatred. Zuko’s face was unreadable. “You and your men might have gotten away with this, you know, if you had only been quieter. You might have been able to poison us. That is what you were doing, wasn’t it? You were slipping poison into our room. Our room. Our room where my wife and I sleep, where our daughter will sleep.” At the word daughter, Zuko ignited his fist with a blade of fire. It was a trick he had picked up from Azula. He brought the flaming point forward, stopping it just short of the man’s eye, although it did sizzle and seem to make him uncomfortable. He stopped and looked at sergeant Oh and his assassins. He looked at Katara, whose arms were crossed behind him. She gave him a look which was imperceptible to the men on the wall, but which he knew well. 

“My wife, and your queen, has saved your lives today.” He said. It was, of course, untrue. Zuko may have been furious, but he was not the kind of man to kill twenty unarmed prisoners. He let his hands drop and he looked one final time at the men. By now he could hear running from the corridors, and he watched as two dozen guards arrived. He indicated Katara, and she began delegating orders. Searches to be done, where and how to transport the assassins, what to do with the canisters found in the maintenance room. The guards listened, and Zuko watched them listen. How many of them could he trust? None. Precisely zero of them. 

The rest of the morning was slow and dreary. The sweeps of the palace and the rest of the work took time, and all the while Zuko was hesitant to divulge anything to the guards around him. When at last the work was complete, and he and Katara returned to their room to get a short rest before dressing and more completely addressing the situation, Zuko sat on the edge of the bed, cracking his weary bones, and depositing his head in his hands. He immediately felt the warmth of Katara’s healing water. He had suffered no injury, but it felt pleasant all the same.

“We cannot trust the palace guards.” She said simply. 

“Can we trust any of the military?” He asked. The water healing stopped, and she wrapped her arms around him, her soft, warm skin against his own. 

“They were about to win, before we stopped it. The war, I mean.” She said. They each knew what the consequence of victory would have been, and they had even made such information public, and while many agreed with them, the factions that did not could not be ignored. Plans would need to be made. Investigations into the military, maybe even entire purges of conspiring soldiers and officers. They would need to call Toph in – their own personal lie detector. He sighed and turned and wrapped her in his arms.

“I’m sorry.” He said. He didn’t know why he said it, he wasn’t even particularly sorry for anything other than the simple fact that it had happened, but it felt like the right thing to say. He couldn’t help but touch her belly, which was not showing any really perceptible change as of yet, but which he knew carried his child. Their child. He could not say why, exactly, but he began to cry.


	6. Affirm

Assassinations and plots and violence and conspiracies – all of it exhausted Zuko in a way that nothing else ever could. His youth had been complicated – certainly – but it wasn’t because the truth was obscured, it was because he had not been ready to hear it; the truth had been sitting at the surface the entire time, and he had been too stubborn to look at it. This, however, was a different scenario. The truth was buried under a dozen layers of lies and code and falsities, and each time he felt closer to discovering it, he found it only more deeply obscured. 

Toph had been helpful to the end of discovering what was true. Her lie detection wasn’t perfect, Azula had proven that years ago, but it was serviceable, and especially useful on the conspirators nearer to the bottom of the ladder who weren’t exactly the psychotic geniuses the Azula was. Sokka and Suki even turned up at one point with the Kyoshi warriors in tow, serving to guard he and Katara while corruption was rooted out of the Fire Nation guards, all of whom had to be thoroughly vetted. At one point, Zuko was considering releasing them all, but Sokka made the good point that the only thing more dangerous than angry people with military training was angry people with military training and no job. 

All the while, Katara was growing increasingly pregnant, and Zuko was growing increasingly paranoid. He had – to that moment – managed to keep it out of his decisions, but he was growing wearier of dark rooms and empty hallways, and more afraid of leaving his wife unattended. That was the risk, he realized, of love. Upon reflection, he was thankful that he and Katara had not been openly affectionate during their childhood – he knew that he would have been even more paranoid as a young man. He tried to recall whether or not he had been that way with Mai, but he couldn’t seem to find those memories. They felt like distant lands now, whose coastlines he could not map. 

Katara had noticed, of course. He liked to think of himself as somewhat unreadable, and maybe to others he was, but she knew him. She knew him in a way that he didn’t even know himself, and that night, as the moon shone in from the window of their room, and he sat on the edge of the bed, and she wrapped her bare warms around his neck, and kissed his hair, he knew that she had known from the very start that he was worried, and paranoid, and scared. He could feel her belly pressing against his back, which did not assuage those fears. 

“When my mother disappeared…” He began, but he could not say why he began there. “I started looking for danger everywhere. I thought someone had come in the night and taken her away. I still believed that my father wasn’t capable of that sort of thing – of what he did to her, and I went a little crazy with fear.” 

“You were a child.” Katara said. Her voice was a whisper.

“I feel that way now. Like I need to protect you.” When he said it, he could feel Katara shake with a little laugh, and he could tell she was smiling into his hair. 

“I don’t need protecting. I can take care of myself, and this child.” 

“I know, I know. That’s what makes it crazy. You’re not helpless. You’re probably still stronger than me, and you’ve got a battery of guards, but I feel…like if…” She kissed the small of his neck, and shifted her grip so her arms snaked underneath his, and met at his collarbone. 

“Like if you go to sleep, you’ll wake up and I’ll be gone. So you don’t sleep.” She said. Zuko smiled sadly. She did, after all, know him better than he knew himself. That was precisely it. He didn’t want to wake up and find that she was disappearing from his grasp. Behind him she held him closer. He hadn’t been sleeping well, and there was the reason, loathe as he might be to admit it. Katara kissed his shoulder, where his scar tapered off, and up his neck, to his cheek, before ending just on the corner of his sightless eye.

“Then, how about I keep you up?” She whispered into his ear. The pregnancy had changed Katara in ways, and exacerbated her previously held personality traits in other ways. The two of them had always been quick to make love – occupying themselves with one another almost nightly, probably six times a week, by Zuko’s count, but the pregnancy had doubled this. Katara was always hungry for him, and something about the pregnancy made her irresistible to him. Even during those frightening times, she would pull him away from his duties twice a day most days. This would make three times today alone.

She remained behind him and slipped her hand into his pants, gently caressing his thighs. He was a ticklish man, and the brushing of her fingertips half excited him, and half made him giggle, a prospect which Katara found infinitely entertaining. Nonetheless, she couldn’t keep up that teasing touch for long. Her current state had also made her less slow-going in their lovemaking. They were always apt to take their time with one another, and they still did by most metrics, but now they too less time. She slipped his pants down, taking him in her hand and gently stoking him. 

The angle made it fairly impossible for him to touch her, but as she moved around him and onto the edge of the bed, he slipped his fingers behind her, moving down from her back and entering her which produced a small moan of pleasure as she took him in her mouth. Katara was, he had found, an excellent lover in all respects, but especially in this one, and her moans of pleasure as he touched her only increased the trembling of his entire being. He was remarkably good at knowing when she was near climax, and as the bobbing of her head became more haphazard and her breathing more ragged, he felt himself reaching that point too. And then suddenly, she stopped. She still had her hands on him, but her mouth had moved away and she was smiling up at him. 

“Not so fast.” She whispered, as she sat up, and moved herself into his lap. This had been a favorite position of theirs lately, as she found it somehow far better now that there was a being growing inside of her. They didn’t question it, as they each found it tremendously satisfying, and as she moved him into her they both exhaled with pleasure, and they began to make love. 

Zuko looked into her eyes as she began to move faster on top of him, each rising and falling of her hips sending shivers up his spine. He was so close from before, but he couldn’t focus on anything else, could not look away. She was hypnotic to him, a wonder of his world, and as he moved in her it felt as though their bodies had been tailor made to fit together. His strong arms held her, and she placed her hands on his shoulders, her eyes half-closed. Neither of them would be making it long.

“Tell me you love me.” She whispered. Another habit lately, needing his affirmation. He supposed that he needed hers too, in this moment. “Tell me you know I’m safe.”

“I love you.” He whispered. “I know you’re safe.” She went faster on top of him, and as they moved faster she was biting his shoulder, muffling moans.

“Tell me,” She said, half coherently, almost faltering. “Tell me that you know nothing will happen to me.” 

“Nothing will happen to you.” He said, even less coherently than she did. She was moving so fast now, and he was fully lifting his hips off of the bed. She had wrapped her fingers in his hair and was moaning into his ear, and the smell of her sweat and sex against him was too much to maintain. They climaxed together, and collapsed on the bed, still moving in time with one another, still riding out the feeling. By the time the moment had eclipsed, they were both nearing sleep. Half-awake, Katara moved his hand to her stomach.

“We’re safe.” She whispered. He kissed her hair, feeling – for the first time in two weeks – like he would not wake up without her.


End file.
